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Pak. J. Bot., 47(3): 1143-1151, 2015.

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ASSESSMENT OF MORPHOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES OF DATE PALM ACCESSIONS OF DIVERSE AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ORIGIN

M. SALMAN HAIDER¹, IQRAR A. KHAN¹, M.J. JASKANI¹, SUMMAR A. NAQVI*¹, MANSOOR HAMEED², MUHAMMAD AZAM¹, ASIF A. KHAN³ AND JEAN C. PINTAUD⁴

Abstract: Sixteen Pakistani date palm cultivars from diverse origins were characterized morphologically to assess the similarity level, the overall point of polymorphism and important agronomic traits existing in the germplasm present in Pakistan. Forty two qualitative and quantitative features were explored and subjected to multivariate analyses. The results brought out important differences in phenotypic characters in all date palm cultivars. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that trunk length and diameter, total number of leaves, rachis length, leaflets length and width, number of leaflets per side, number of pinnae planes, length and grouping of spines were highly divergent. Similarly cluster analyses (CA) also revealed phenotypic diversity among date palm cultivars and, some close association or heterogeneity was also observed within cultivars of the same origin.

Key words: Date palm, Morphology, Multivariate analysis, PCA, CA.

¹Pomology Laboratory, Institute of Horticultural Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan;

²Taxonomy Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan;

³Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan;

⁴IRD, DIADE-DYNADIV, 911 AV. Agropolis, BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.

^*Corresponding author: summarnaqvi@hotmail.com